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The first part of 2018 has been a curious one for me. During the first week of January, my stepfather passed away the gloriously ripe old age of 91. He’d been battling Parkinson’s Disease for a long time, and my mother had also endured a great deal looking after him during his final years. It’s a grisly terminal illness and I was glad and thankful to see the end to both their suffering.

The greatest trick death ever pulled is convincing you its all about you. Of course it’s not. Death doesn’t happen to you. Once you’re gone you’re gone – wherever that may be. Death happens to everyone else. The shock, the tears, the seemingly endless practicalities. The tedious minutae of planning. That’s the essence of death surely. Grief and logistics. Those left behind have to process so much. Even in this case when it’s expected and indeed welcome, death really is exhausting.

So recent events ensured that start of my year was oddly timeless. At once fast yet slow. After an inevitable period of adjustment, I suddenly realised it was April. Running concurrently with family events, I’d taken a break from improv and stand up to take part in a theatrical adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. After last year’s Zoo Story, I was approached about playing Mr Bennet, the distant and sarcastic pater familias of the family at the heart of Jane Austen’s classic commentary of love, family and early 19th century social airs and graces.

I readily accepted. I like being sarcastic and if I get to do it while wearing late Georgian fashion all the better. The production is being staged in Denmark by Copenhagen Theatre Circle and I’ve had the pleasure of working with some talented, lovely people. It’s rare in this game to meet people who are both talented AND lovely – they’ve always seemed to me hitherto mutually exclusive – and thanks to this vibrant cast, I have laughed and learned a lot along the way.

Pride and Prejudice opens on April 18th and closes on 28th. It’s been an intense and intensive schedule during the build up and at times it’s been rather gruelling. I’ve been spoiled by improv I have to say. You just get up with nothing and create on the spot. I’m an impatient show off and I enjoy the instant gratification from winging it and discovering funny and extraordinary multiple characters in the moment. I find improv to be closer an experience to stand-up comedy than conventional theatre and I’d forgotten the more arduous aspects of the latter. Blocking, thrashing out character motivation, weeks of rehearsals and, of course, learning lines. Still, I was flattered to have been asked and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the process of finding the character, trying to bring a little piece of myself into such an iconic literary figure. I am proud to be involved and look forward to taking the stage next week.

That said, we haven’t even started the run and already I’m exhausted. But being exhausted seems to be defining quality of 2018. Family has been front and centre both on and off stage. Seems fitting to reflect on how one feeds into the other. As I pretend to be an emotionally absent father who struggled with his duties towards his wife and daughters, I can’t help but reflect on the role my stepdad played in my life. He too was a complicated man, but a good man. He was no stranger to stepping back from the more dramatic aspects of those around him and often indulged in considered bursts of wry sarcasm. I suspect he and Mr Bennet would have got on rather well.

Pride and Prejudice 18-28 April 2018
Weekdays at 19:00
Saturdays at 14:00 and 19:00
Sunday at 14:00Buy tickets here

Have you heard the one about two Brits in Copenhagen pretending they’re in New York?

Very excited to report that I have recently been asked to take the stage for a theatrical production of Edward Albee’s classic 1958 play The Zoo Story at Huset in the heart of Copenhagen. Already home to a thriving English-speaking theatre company House of International Theatre (HIT), I was thrilled to be asked by my fellow ICC performer Charlier Waller to form the remaining 50 per cent of the cast.

If you don’t know about it (and to my shame I include myself in this), it’s a one-act, two-person play that has often been labelled Theatre of the Absurd, but I don’t feel it is. It deals with universal themes including failure to communicate, isolation, class, societal failure and male identity.

While being quintessentially American at its heart, the ideas that Albee played with in his writing knows no country or nationality. This also explains why we chose to perform in our native British accents and not pretend to be American. As two ex pats living in a different country, we felt some affinity with the ideas of being out of time and place, strangers in a strange land, somewhat disconnected from the status quo. Again, all these themes run throughout every aspect of Albee’s writing.

It’s only a three-night run and a short play but it has proved quite an intense experience, not least because both Charlie and I are on stage for the entire play. Even in a longer play it’s rare for an actor to have 100 per cent stage time so in accumulative terms, it’s quite an undertaking. I should also mention that this is the first time I’ve been on stage for scripted performance since I was at school. So there’s that.

Anyway, I’ve really enjoyed treading the boards, I hope this won’t be my last. Time will tell…

A little over ten years ago, myself and writer/director Richard Sclater made a one-off show for Paramount Comedy Channel called Sir Leslie Quint: A Life in Film. Only this year, I finally got my hands on the episodes.

The show was a tribute to our love for the bizarre, eccentric and sometimes deeply offensive British film directors such as Ken Russell, Michael Winner and John Boorman. All pushed the boundaries of cinema and all lived lives as large as the characters they put on screen.

Named after my favourite character in one of my favourite films (I’ll leave you to work that out), Quint also represented those types of Englishmen who seem forever lost in time, forever out of touch and forever remaining positive in the face of monstrous adversity -usually of their own making.

Our show also set out to lampoon the cultural trends of cinema and society through the decades of the 20th Century, as seen through the bemused eyes of one of its survivors.

We wrote it by Richard interviewing me in character and improvised my responses to various questions about my life, work, films and controversies. This was then hammered out into a script.

We had great fun filming this series, shot on location in London, such as Mayfair, Soho and Hampstead Heath. some of the shots we got in the Red light district we had to do on the sly, often met with disapproving glares from large men in doorways to sex clubs – who knew these gentlemen didn’t want their face captured on camera. But, thanks to bold and cunning moves by Jedd Thomas and Will Sinclair, we got more than we could have hoped.

We wanted Quint to have lived and breathed key moments in history, much like Forrest Gump or Woody Allen’s Zelig, but on a much smaller budget. I’d also like to mention the superb work by Paramount’s in-house design team led by Chris Wainwright, who worked above and beyond to interweave Quint into documented archive imagery and also to create those absolutely brilliant movie posters, most of which I would happily hang on my wall.

It’s the little details, I feel, that make this show come alive, encouraging pausing to study the frame for easter eggs and almost-hidden gags.

Even after all this time, I feel that Quint still stands up. We were very proud of what we achieved with virtually no money, back before people could just shoot on a smart phone and edit on their laptop, and we’re still proud of it now. It’s dark, twisted and more than a little mischievous, but also warm, nostalgic and Quint himself is a strangely likeable monster.

It’s perhaps ironic that watching this series again makes me nostalgic for a different time in TV land. We were given complete creative freedom on this little documentary. I suspect that would not be the case these days. Paramount actually went on to commission us to write a pilot episode for a full series. Sadly, due to a change in management, this never saw the light of day. But I can assure you it’s a cracker.

A year or so later, Paramount rebranded as Comedy Central, or ‘The Friends Channel’, with little interest in making original shows. So it goes. But I like to think that Leslie will one day return. You can’t keep someone like him down for long…

I’ve been living in Copenhagen for just under a year and a half now and it’s marvellous. Last year I reawakened my love for performing live and am now a regular player at Improv Comedy Copenhagen. I’ve learned much about the world of improv, specifically American longform improv, the school of making it up as you go along, pioneered by the late Del Close, whose notable students included so many of my early comedy inspirations, including Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and John Candy to name, well, four.

There are shows on Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and they are a blast. I take to the stage on Thursdays and Fridays, so if you’re in town, drop by – although it sells out regularly so I advise getting tickets beforehand. The link above tells you all you need to know about performances, tickets, times, classes and more.

So that’s it for now. I’m going to try and better at updating this site. Yeah, I know. I said that last year. And the year before. Bear with me, I’m very tired.

Harold Ramis. Mel Smith. Rik Mayall. The voice of shaggy from Scooby Doo. Now Robin Williams. Seems someone is systematically killing off my childhood. Anyway, Even though I left Comedy Central over a year ago, they won’t leave me alone. They asked me to write something about the most recent performer to cross over beyond the veil, so I scribbled this while on a train. Forgive the odd grammatical inconsistencies, but I only had twenty minutes…

Weird couple of weeks. Having taken a month off work, I have spent more time than usual reflecting on everything about my life. Not to say I was wallowing, more that I have been extra mindful of my current direction and, more specifically, the choices I make or don’t make to steady the train, clear the tracks and ensure safe passage through life in all its florid glory. So, perhaps it is sadly rather apposite that during this period of introspection an old school friend suddenly passed away.

The greatest trick death pulls is making you believe it happens to you; it is of course something that happens to everyone else. Finding solace in heaven, reincarnation, or a final, everlasting sleep does not change the fact that as far as this mortal realm is concerned, once you’re gone you’re gone. It is those left behind who have to process tragedy, deal with the myriad of conflicting, painful emotions and pick up the pieces. It is everyone else who has to make sense of what it means to just stop living.

Of course, those of a religious persuasion find comfort in the notion that when we die we go somewhere else, but as religions dwindle, our society finds concepts of an afterlife or the soul increasingly amorphous and vague. Everything seemed clearer in the past. However primitive, there was a system in place and, more significantly, a destination. The ancient Egyptians believed when you died you had to endure a rigorous series of trials to determine what happens to your soul in the afterlife. You needed to have memorised elaborate texts, incantations and spells from the Book of the Dead – the ultimate theory driving test. Your heart was then weighed against a ‘feather of truth’ which means, as anyone with even the most basic understanding of physics will tell you, the odds are already stacked against you. Still, when you’re being judged by a colossal being with the head of a jackal, all rational bets are off. This notion of your fate in the hereafter being determined by how you behaved in life has endured in many faiths because it IS comforting. It suggests a purer form of justice beyond our mortal reach, that life is balance, that life is fair. Which, of course, it isn’t.

Today we have no death culture and we need one. Not necessarily the need for religious conviction that when we die we go to a better place, more that as a culture we need to collectively embrace death precisely BECAUSE is unites and sustains us. In the past disease and war brought us together in mourning. Sharing a traumatic experience gave us the strength and tools to face the unknown – a united front against a common enemy. During the Nineteenth Century, thousands in London perished due to the stifling grip of cholera. The carnage of World War One saw entire towns in the North of England lose every single man and boy. In the past life was cheap. Now it is reassuringly expensive. We have spent a fortune to ensure that many previously fatal diseases are now curable and controllable, while the nature of modern warfare and no conscription means organised conflict takes place among paid volunteers in some far flung desert. It is remote, it is distant. In this country at least, neither disease nor war has the same raging conflagration that incinerates whole communities, but by the same token we are no longer brought together on a regular basis to face the white-heat immediacy of death. Thanks to scientific and medical advances, we are living longer than ever before, but this means grief is less frequently felt and so we are less equipped to handle it. The idea that ‘it was just their time’ is fought tooth and nail. Not many of us are willing to meet death head on. It’s rarely our time because so few of us are ready.

So what do we do? We hide behind language. From the comical list of euphemisms spouted with high-pitched venom by John Cleese when returning his dead parrot to the more sensitive phrases used in polite conversation to soothe, the reason we have so many alternative ways of conveying death is because for many it is too unfathomable to comprehend. We talk of people ‘passing on’ or ‘passing away’, a reminder that not only is life fleeting, but also that those who die are merely on the move, heading somewhere else. No need to get up, I’m just passing through. See you in a bit.

My friend had a troublesome life. He found certain aspects difficult and due to many factors we’ll never truly know, it all came to a head last month. Though we were close in the past, it would be untrue to state we were best buds or that even though the news came as a shock, I was not surprised. I can say, however, that my heart goes out to his family. Death also has the power to relieve and release, but to see someone never realise all their dreams, ambitions and potential is a tragedy.

And yet how do we know if we have fulfilled our potential? Potential to oneself? To others? The more you peel away the idea that we all are here for a reason, to strive towards an admirable goal, the more everything starts to unravel. Is it best just to accept that things ‘just happen’? That you just keep your head down and get on with it? No room for navel gazing here, best leave that to those furrow-browed, emotional European philosophers of days past. Whether you spend an unhealthy amount of time thinking about death or never give it a second thought, it’s going to happen whether you like it or not. Realistic? Yes. Comforting? Not really.

Life is flux, and I believe embracing that flux is key to happiness. It was staring down the barrel of professional inertia that moved me to make recent changes in my own life. Were they the right choices? Time will tell. And that’s the point. We all move forward regardless and we can’t afford to be neutral on a moving train. Whether we press down hard to gain momentum, strain to apply the brakes or strive to redirect the route, all the decisions we make will affect the trip, regardless of the destination. Best make them count. My friend has reached the end of his journey. Wherever he is, I’m sure he’s enjoying his slumber. As for the rest of us, fingers crossed we’re headed in the right direction; I guess we’ll find out when we get there. RIP old friend, hope you enjoyed the ride.